Trump shill demands journalists stop calling out White House lies

Thing we learned from the last White House Correspondents' Association Dinner: telling the truth is offensive to Trump's shills.

While a silly debate rages about the jokes that were told at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Trump backer and CPAC head Matt Schlapp was offended by the truth.

On Monday morning, Schlapp appeared on CNN's "New Day" to talk about the dinner, which he and wife — White House spokesperson Mercedes Schlapp — walked out of "in protest."

Schlapp repeated the lie that comedian Michelle Wolf mocked Sarah Huckabee Sanders' looks, but said he was also offended by another issue.

"We have big political disagreements in this country," Schlapp said. "And I think it's wrong for journalists to take that next step."

"Granted, [Michelle Wolf]'s a comedian, but plenty of journalists do it as well," he said. "They take the next step. Just present the facts, let the American people decide if they think someone is lying. The journalist shouldn't be the one to say that the president or his spokesperson is lying."

Schlapp's declaration that journalists shouldn't call out lies might have sounded shocking in another era, but it has been a long-term project of Trump and his enablers to render facts meaningless.

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer's first official act on the job was to scream lies at the press, lies which Kellyanne Conway then rebranded as "alternative facts." And on that first weekend of the Trump administration, both Spicer and Conway threatened the press over calling them out.

And just this month, Mercedes Schlapp had to make an appearance on Fox News in order to clean up a string of Trump lies about the firing of VA Secretary David Shulkin. It's little wonder that Trump's minions would like to reduce matters of truth to mere "disagreements."

But journalists who are doing their jobs know the difference between "disagreements" and lies. And unfortunately for Trump and many of his associates, so does Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Shareblue Media is an American media company. We tell real-world stories to give voice to the heroes fighting for American values. We are a rapidly growing community — reaching millions per week across platforms — that is optimistic, honest, and unafraid.